1902 Thomas Nast example essay topic

431 words
" The Father of American Caricatures" Thomas Nast was born in Landau, Germany on September 26, 1840. He lived in Germany until he was six at which time his family immigrated to the United States. His childhood took place in New York. At a very young age he demonstrated signs of being a very talented, and creative artist. He studied art at many places and with many interesting people, among these was; Theodore Kaufmann a German painter who specialized in historical sciences.

Some say that it was Kaufmann that influenced Tho age of 15 Nast had his first drawing published by a national magazine. Although he was excited he soon became determined to be illustrated in Harper's weekly magazine. He began drawing for Harper's Weekly, full time in 1862. Throughout the Civil War Nast used his influential skill of drawing to created patriotic drawings urging people to help crush the rebels and free slaves. To quote President Abraham Lincoln "Thomas Nast has been our best recruiting sergeant. His emblematic cartoons have never failed to arouse enthusiasm and patriotism".

He also helped in the development of the character " Uncle Sam ", to represent the United States. Nast's themes are still very familiar to Americans today, Nast also originated the idea in America of using animals to represent political parties. In his cartoons the Democratic Party was portrayed as a donkey while the Republican Party was represented as an elephant. We still use these symbols today in current elections. Nast campaigned against William Tweed in the fall of 1869. Tweed, was a corrupt political leader of New York city at this time.

He came very close to losing his job over this campaign. He was bribed $500,000 to end his campaign. Which was a substantial amount more then he was making at Harper's weekly, he refused. In 1871 he moved to New Jersey after threats from the Tweed ring. After Tweed was arrested and put into prison for his corruption. Nast was praised for his campaign as " the finest and most effective political cartooning ever done in the United States.

In 1892 Nast began " Nast weekly", after buying out New York Gazette. This Magazine soon failed and was the beginning to his downward spiral of financial problems. In 1902, he was appointed U.S. consul in Ecuador by his friend President Theodore Roosevelt. On December 7, 1902 Thomas Nast died from yellow fever in Ecuador.